This invention relates to a potato dough composition comprising a process oil, for instance, a vegetable oil, an animal fat or blends thereof, which is added to the dough ingredients during mixing to enhance tenderness and crispness in the finished potato product and to facilitate handling and forming of the dough.
Various methods have been developed for producing fabricated potato products from potato doughs. These products simulate conventional potato products, for instance, french fries cut from fresh potatoes. U.S. Pat. No. 4,156,744 issued to Kiplocks et al on May 29, 1979 for "Process for Forming Shaped Potato Products and Products Resulting Therefrom", discloses one such method designed to result in a finished potato product having a tender and crisp exterior and without substantial pastiness.
In this respect, it is believed that the pasty quality results from "overmixing" of the ingredients, thereby causing starch damage and excessive release of free starch in the dough. Moreover, overmixing of the dough ingredients can result in too sticky a mixture making proper forming of the dough extremely difficult. While a gentle and brief mixing of the dough ingredients reduces the chance of overmixing, this procedure is usually ineffective for producing a uniform mixture.
During forming of the potato dough, such as by extrusion through a die orifice, "featuring" or jagged edges can occur on the extruded dough, which is deleterious in terms of achieving a final product with desirable characteristics. Although an increase in potato dough moisture content can help alleviate feathering, the reconstituted product will generally lose crispness and become limp.
Accordingly, those skilled in the art have recognized a significant need for a potato dough composition which will reduce the chance of "overmixing" and "feathering" of the dough during processing but without resulting in a tough exterior surface of the final reconstituted potato product. The present invention fulfills this need.
Other features and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following more detailed description of the preferred embodiments taken in conjunction with the appended claims.